Achurch (formerly Asenciran sometimes referred to as Thorpe Achurch) is a village in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Thorpe Achurch, in

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It ...

, England. Situated on a small rise above the

River Nene The River Nene ( or : see below) is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire.OS Explorer Map sheet 223, Northampton & Market Harborough, Brixworth & Pitsford Water. The river is about long, about of w ...

, 5 miles South of the market town of

Oundle Oundle () is a market town on the left bank of the River Nene in North Northamptonshire, England, which had a population of 5,735 at the time of the 2011 census. It is north of London and south-west of Peterborough. The town is home to Ound ...

, the population of the

of Thorpe Achurch at the 2011 census was 421. The parish includes the Grade I listed property

Lilford Hall Lilford Hall is a Grade I listed Jacobean stately home in Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. The 100-room house is located in the eastern part of the county, south of Oundle and north of Thrapston. History It was started in 1495 as a Tud ...

and the Grade II* listed Church of St. John the Baptist, an early and late 13th Century Anglican church restored and enlarged by architect William Slater in 1862.

History

The villages name means 'Asa's church' or 'Asi's church'. Settled successively since the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

the village was named after the site of the nearby church as ’Aas-kirk’, meaning Church by the Water. Subsequently named Asechirce in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 with land held mainly by Ascelin de Waterville, a Norman knight after whom the adjoining village of

Thorpe Waterville Thorpe Waterville is a village in the English county of Northamptonshire. It is combined with Achurch to form the ecclesiastical parish of 'Thorpe Achurch'; in turn this is added to another combined parish, Lilford-cum-Wigsthorpe, to form t ...

is named. Ownership of the land passed through the Dukes of Exeter in the 14th Century with Henry VII granting them to his mother

Lady Margaret Beaufort Lady Margaret Beaufort (usually pronounced: or ; 31 May 1441/43 – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch. A descendant o ...

. On her death the two manors of Thorpe Waterville and Achurch remained the property of the Crown until

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

granted them to his illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy.

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...

awarded the manors to

Sir William Cecil William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 15204 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–1553 and 1558–1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1 ...

, later Lord Burghley, and they remained in the possession of his descendants the Earls of Exeter, until 1773, when the estates were sold to Thomas Powys of Lilford. Thomas Powys’ grandson was to be raised to the peerage as the first Lord Lilford in 1797.

Notable people

* Robert Browne who had previously founded the

Brownists The Brownists were a group of English Dissenters or early Separatists from the Church of England. They were named after Robert Browne, who was born at Tolethorpe Hall in Rutland, England, in the 1550s. A majority of the Separatists aboard the ...

, a forerunner of Congregationalism, was rector here from 1591 to 1631. *

William Peake William Peake (c. 1580–1639) was an English painter and printseller. Life He was the son of the painter Robert Peake the Elder, and father of the printseller and royalist army officer, Sir Robert Peake. In the accounts for the funeral of Hen ...

- born in Achurch in 1603, became Lord Mayor of London in 1686. * Edmund Quincy - ancestor of

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States ...

, sixth President of the United States, lived in the village prior to emigrating to America in 1633. The village has lent its name to people's surnames who are believed to have originated from the village.

References

External links

*
A series of ten photographs and some further details of the village
* * Villages in Northamptonshire North Northamptonshire {{Northamptonshire-geo-stub